Keepit.com is part of a group of companies, under a parent company called Cohaesio. It is headquartered in Copenhagen, Denmark. Cohaesio’s core competencies in managing infrastructure, support for a large number of customers and complex storage solutions allowed Keepit.com to easily enter the online backup industry.

“The less clicks the better” is the mantra that governs the service offerings of Keepit.com, the online backup service provider. The company strives to serve its customers by ensuring that complication in the software is not the reason why backups fail to happen. Keepit.com’s explicit strategy is to differentiate on simplicity and ease of use, and they certainly deliver on this promise.

There are no unnecessary clicks or complex settings to go through during the set up, backup and restore process.

Presently, Keepit.com offers services in the following languages: English, Danish, Swedish, Norwegian, and Finish. In the coming months, Keepit.com is planning to add services in French and Spanish.

The service offerings come in three flavors-Keepit.com Free, Keepit.com Unlimited and Keepit.com Pro. Currently, the downloadable .exe works with Windows Vista, Windows XP, Windows 2000 and Windows Server 2003. A Linux agent is in private beta and after this Mac client will follow.

Keepit.com Free is a free service that provides users with 2 GB of space. The number of PCs that can connect to the service is only one. The prerequisite for the use of this version is regular activity. If no backup is performed for more than 90 days the account is automatically deleted.

Keepit.com Unlimited is so named because the amount of space offered in the backup server is unlimited. A charge of $4.95 is made monthly from the subscribers to this account. The number of PCs that can connect to the server is only one. The prerequisite for the use of this account is that it should be used only for private purposes and not for business. The features of Keepit.com Unlimited are:

Unlimited space for all your irreplaceable files

A simple client, easy to install on any PC

Smart selection of default folders for backup

Automatic daily backup of your PC

Start and stop the backup whenever you want to

30 day history – so you can go back to a point of time, before you accidentally deleted a file, and retrieve it

E-mail support

Keepit.com Pro is the professional version. This is a pay as you go solution. The option of connecting one or more PCs to the account is left to the user. The amount of space requirement is also to be determined by the user. A minimum charge of $3.95 per month applies; and for additional storage space requirements, $0.50 per GB per month applies. The general features of Keepit.com Pro are:

Windows Server compatibility

A simple client, easy to install on each computer

Smart selection of default folders for backup

Automatic daily backup of each computer

Backup can be stopped and started individually

30 days history of each backup set

Control panel for managing the account

Phone support and prioritized email support

Users can choose to pay for Keepit.com Unlimited or Keepit.com Pro for 12-24 months. A discount of two months will be given to users who pay in advance for 24 months.

The download and installation of the desktop control panel is surprisingly very simple. All that the user needs to do is to specify his email id on the website and click download. An email is sent to the user id specified. The user is required to click on a link in the email to activate the account and that’s it.

The installation file that is downloaded is installed in a single step process of accepting the license agreement. The rest of the automated installation takes only a few seconds.

A desktop backup and restore configuration panel is available for instant use as an icon is placed on the system tray. Users must initially login to the server through the configuration panel and be connected to the Internet for the backup process to begin.

Keepit.com runs in the background as a service, which ensures that scheduled backups are done even if you don’t log-on to your PC account. This is a feature most of the established providers do not offer and clearly makes Keepit.com user friendly. Keepit.com is an excellent choice for both your home computer as well as a server environment.

On login, the system checks and validates the key that is generated at the time of installation before it connects the user to the server. This feature ensures that only one computer connects to one account. Loss of the key implies loss of backed up data as no one else has the key or access to the backed up files. Users cannot access the backed up files directly from the web interface.

The first time backup takes some time but is faster than most backup systems available in the market even with a lower bandwidth speed. The subsequent backups are incremental and only files that have changed will be backed up. If the initial backup is interrupted for any reason, the backup begins from the place it left off, supporting continuous backups.

Backed up files can be accessed by navigating to the Restore menu and clicking View backed up files button. It is not possible to delete files that have been backed up to the server unless the user contacts support that can assist in resetting the account and delete all files backed-up.

The system also does not warn you that you are exceeding the free or purchased back up limit while backup is in process. Keepit.com says that it is good customer service to allow for the backup to complete even if a user does not have an account that supports it.

If by chance the user exceeds the 2GB limit set for the free account, the account will not allow for further backups. The user is required to either ask Keepit.com Support to reset the account or upgrade the account to Keepit.com Unlimited or Keepit.com Pro to continue.

The status report indicates the amount by which you have exceeded the limit. Once the backup is complete, your status screen will show that you are over quota.

The restore process is very simple. The user needs to merely navigate to the restore tab and select the type of restoration they need. Users can restore by backup set, or all files or selected files.

Upgrade of account is possible by clicking on the upgrade link in the status tab of the configuration panel. Cancellation of the account also requires the user to write to the company via email and request for the cancellation of the account.

Data transfer between the PC and the server is encrypted using Rijndael (AES) encryption. The data is stored in multiple servers that are placed in geographically different locations to guard against natural disasters and data loss due to other factors.

The company supports its clients via telephone and support is available from Monday to Friday between 10:00AM and 9:00 PM, local time. On Saturdays, the company can be contacted between 10:00 AM and 6:00 PM, local time. Keep in mind that Denmark is at GMT+1. Clients can also leave a message via email using the contact form that is available at the company website. Keepit.com is planning to launch a 24X7 support in Q3 of 2008.

Getting started with Keepit.com is simple and involves just a few clicks on the mouse button. The website only requires users to enter their email id and then validate it by clicking the link that is sent in an email to the id, to get going. The software comes in three flavors-Keepit.com free, Keepit.com Unlimited and Keepit.com Pro. There is no time limit or strings attached to the free version. The only limit is the amount of space that they can use – 2 GB. Keepit.com Unlimited, as the name suggests removes the space constraint but requires a payment of $4.95 per month for the services. Keepit.com Pro is the professional version that allows users to pay as they go. A minimum charge of $3.95 per month +$0.5 per month for every GB of space used will have to be paid. While the first two products (Keepit.com Free and Keepit.com Unlimited) will allow users to connect only one PC to the server, Keepit.com Pro allows multiple PCs to connect and backup files to the server.